The Editors of TIME-LIFE - TIME-LIFE Deaths That Shocked the World

Deaths That Shocked the World

SHINING LIGHT Just minutes before presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy was shot in June 1968, he addressed supporters in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

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PRODUCED BY Kensington Media Group

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WRITER Brion OConnor

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e-ISBN: 978-1-54784-162-2

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CONTENTS

TRAGIC NEWS On the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963, LIFE photographer Carl Mydans captured commuters reading about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

Whether a ballad, a rock riff or a grunge blast, the music that lives on after the death of an Elvis Presley, a John Lennon, or a Michael Jackson helps fill the void.

CHAPTER 2

Through movies, we develop intimate relationships with stars we might never meet, from the incandescent Marilyn Monroe to funny man Robin Williams. And when they pass, we grieve the loss as we would a friend.

CHAPTER 3

Roosevelt has died. Kennedy has been shot. Diana is gone. When inspiring figures die unexpectedly, their lives are mourned for what could have been.

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

They gave us the soundtrack to our lives; then, in a flash, they were gone

PURPLE RAIN The greatest gift was to see him onstage, The New Yorkers David Remnick wrote of Prince. Live, emerging from the dry-ice clouds, he was unforgettable, unstoppable, a weather system all his own.

The King

Elvis Presley

1935 1977

ELVIS ON TV Elvis Presleys manager, Col. Tom Parker, left, Presley and Ed Sullivan, before Presleys second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The television host paid Presley an unprecedented $50,000 for his three performances on the popular Sunday variety program.

Fans of Elvis Presley were used to a buzz of activity around Graceland, the Kings palatial home in Memphis, Tenn. But on Aug. 16, 1977, the sight of an ambulance driving through the crowd at Gracelands gates suggested something far more ominous.

Presley, 42, had been discovered midafternoon that day in his bathroom, facedown, by his girlfriend, 20-year-old Ginger Alden. He was already cold when paramedics arrived. There were no vital signs. Still, Presleys doctorGeorge Nichopoulosinsisted that the performer be brought to Baptist Memorial Hospital, 15 minutes farther than nearby Methodist South Hospital. At 3:30 p.m., an hour after Alden found him, the singer was pronounced dead. The death certificate stated that Presley had suffered a heart attack, but toxicology reports released later refuted that finding, revealing high levels of pharmaceuticals in his system.

During Presleys childhood, such drug abuse would have been unimaginable. Presley was born in 1935 in Tupelo, Miss., to blue-collar parents. His formative years were spent surrounded by black musicians in his neighborhood, where he fell in love with rhythm and blues. After Presleys family moved to Memphis in 1948, promoter Oscar Davis introduced the young singer to his associate, Col. Tom Parker, a former carnival huckster. Parker orchestrated the singers exit from Sun, the small label that gave Presley his first break, and brought him to RCA Victor. Heartbreak Hotel became his first No. 1 single for RCA in 1956, a breakthrough year that also yielded Presleys first album, Elvis Presley, and movie contract (with Paramount), for the film Love Me Tender . A dizzying string of hits followedElvis would record 17 No. 1 and 38 Top 10 songs in his careeras he grew into rocks most charismatic onstage presence. Presley appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show three times in 1956 and 57by his third performance, Sullivan and the network censors, concerned about conservative criticism of Elviss gyrating hips, decided to film the singer exclusively from the waist up. Presleys initial performance was seen by 60 million viewers, or 83 percent of the television audience that night. The Beatles and the British Invasion pushed Presley out of the limelight for a time, but he resuscitated his career in the late 60s by taking his act to Las Vegas.

What the public didnt knowbut his intimates didwas that Presleys performance was fueled almost from the beginning by a steady diet of pills. Priscilla Presley, who met her future husband in 1959 when she was 14, reported in her memoir, Elvis and Me, that Presley relied on prescription medications from the time she first met him: Placidyl to get to sleep, then Dexedrine to wake up and prepare for the grueling schedule Parker demanded of his star client. Over the years, Presley needed larger quantities of pharmaceuticals to function professionally and cope with debilitating bouts of anxiety and depression. In 1973, after his divorce from Priscilla was finalized, he was hospitalized twice for drug-related issues, and he started canceling tour dates. By the time of his death, he was a mess, bloated to the point of obesity at over 300 pounds and, in addition to his drug addiction, was suffering from diabetes, glaucoma and constipation.